Low Tide

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Boudreaux, it’s Maggie Redmond.”

  “Hello, Maggie.”

  “I need your help.”

  “What is it?” Boudreaux actually sounded interested, which was more than Patrick had done.

  “I’ve been working with a girl, a girl who got mixed up with Richard Alessi.”

  “Richard Alessi’s a scumbag. But I hear he’s a deceased scumbag.”

  “Yes. But now DCS has taken her children away from her. She’s a good girl. It took a lot of courage for her to come to me.”

  “I’d say it did.”

  “She loves her kids.”

  “No offense meant, but I don’t know anyone at DCS. Why are you calling me?”

  “Because your son is useless.”

  Maggie hadn’t meant to say that, but Boudreaux laughed quietly.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Boudreaux. I’m just upset. This girl deserves to keep her kids.”

  “Well, I know some people who might be able to weigh in her favor,” Boudreaux said. “I can’t promise anything, but give me a couple days to try and call in one or two favors.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Maggie paused for a moment.

  “Am I going to owe you something for this?”

  “Yes, a drink. I’ll call you,” he said and hung up.

  Maggie stood there for a second, realizing with some surprise that her hands were shaking just a little. She opened her contacts and called Grace’s phone.

  “Hello?” Grace’s voice was expectant and hopeful.

  “Grace, it’s Maggie Redmond.”

  “I know.”

  “Listen, I struck out with the State’s Attorney’s office. It was kind of a long shot, anyway. But I have someone else looking into your kids.”

  “Are they a lawyer?”

  “No, just a…just a friend, but he knows a lot of important people.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Grace sounded deflated.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Maggie said. “Don’t lose your faith. Do you want to come here? Or maybe go get some lunch? Are you eating?”

  “No, I’m fine. I’m staying right here until my kids come home.”

  “Okay, Grace. But call me if you change your mind. Or if you need something. Okay?”

  “Okay. I will.”

  Maggie hung up and let out a deep breath. Then she went outside to look for something she could fix.

  Maggie spent the rest of the day occupying her mind, mainly with Wyatt Hamilton. She was at loose ends, and needed to go to work or have her kids home. She’d be able to return to work Wednesday and the kids would be back Thursday night. She focused on staying busy until then.

  She accomplished that by mowing the little grass she had in the yard, rescuing Stoopid from an old doghouse that no longer fit Coco, scrubbing the floors and thinking about Wyatt. Mainly, she thought about Wyatt.

  When she went to bed, at the early hour of nine because she was so bored, she was still thinking about the way Wyatt smelled, and the way his mouth had felt on hers.

  That night was the first one in recent days that was not disturbed by nightmares.

  Wayne Stinnett checked his line, then padded barefoot across the deck of his Chris Craft to grab the Thermos of coffee his wife had made him. He opened it, poured a fresh cupful into his chipped Key West mug, and took an appreciative swallow.

  He was an oysterman by trade, but had cut back to working the oyster beds just three days a week. Even so, most of his days off were spent on the bay, and sunrise was his favorite time to come out here to this area. The sea trout had a hankering to congregate near the causeway over to St. George early in the morning, and he had a hankering for sea trout.

  He took off his Papa Joe’s cap, and wiped at his mostly bald head with a forearm. It wasn’t even seven yet, and it was already hot. His white beard itched from the humidity that promised the kind of day that would keep most people inside.

  Wayne finished his coffee in one big gulp and set his mug down as he saw his rod bend toward the sea. He rushed over, pulled it out from where he’d jammed it behind the bench seat, felt the line, and started reeling. He could see it was a redfish, not a trout, but that was okay. Martha loved redfish, and he loved Martha.

  As he parried with his fish, he looked up toward the causeway. He was at the high point in the bridge, where it humped up all of a sudden. It was a good seventy feet at this point, or so he recalled. His boat was a good thirty yards outside the shade line, but something made him look up at the bridge and he saw her.

  There was a woman or a girl standing there, and at first he thought she’d pulled over to throw up over the side. But then she slowly climbed up on the wall and stood there for just a second or two.

  Wayne had thought he was about to shout up to her, although he didn’t know what. But, when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. And then she just bent over and fell.

  Wayne knew they were too far away from each other for it to be true, but just before she started falling, with her little yellow dress whipping around her legs, he could have sworn they’d looked each other in the eye.

  Maggie was half-awake and thinking about going back to sleep when her cell phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Maggie? It’s uh, it’s Dwight.”

  “Hey. What’s up?”

  “Well, uh, you know Wayne Stinnett?”

  Maggie sat up. “Yeah, he’s good friends with my Dad. Is he okay?”

  “Well, the thing is, uh…he just called in a few minutes ago, after he called the Coast Guard.”

  Maggie jumped out of the bed, her heart pounding. “Dwight. Is it my Dad?”

  “Oh no, oh, I’m sorry, Maggie, no,” Dwight hurried. “But a woman jumped off the 300, out there at the hump. And, the thing is, there’s a blue Monte Carlo up there and I ran the plates—”

  “I have to go, Dwight,” Maggie said.

  “Wyatt’s already on his—”

  Maggie tossed the phone down and felt her chest cave in. Then she pulled on her jeans from the day before.

  It took Maggie less than fifteen minutes to find the spare keys to her Dad’s little speedboat and get to Scipio Creek Marina. It took another fifteen for her to get out to where a Coast Guard cutter, the department boat, and several fishing or oyster boats were congregated.

  Maggie cut the engine and coasted up along Wayne Stinnett’s port side. He was leaning against his starboard rail, watching the activity near the cutter.

  “Wayne! Can you tie me off?”

  Wayne turned and hurried over to grab her bow line, and tied her off as she hurriedly dumped two bumpers over the side between their boats. Then she grabbed Wayne’s hand, walked up his hull, and climbed over the rail.

  “Aw, Maggie. Dammit.”

  He rushed back over to the starboard rail and Maggie followed him. Ten feet away, Wyatt stood on the deck of the department boat with a couple of deputies, hands on his hips and cap in his hand.

  “Wyatt?” Maggie called.

  He turned, pulled his eyebrows together, and took a few steps toward her. “What are you doing here, dammit?”

  “Dwight called me. Why didn’t you call me?”

  Wyatt took a few steps closer, leaned on the rail. “Because knowing is bad enough; you don’t need to see it.”

  “We got her!” a man shouted from the Coast Guard cutter, and Wayne ran over to the other rail.

  Two men reached over the side of the cutter, and two men in scuba gear were lifting something up. Maggie held her breath and watched.

  First she saw pale, thin arms, and then birdlike shoulders and almost brown hair. When the men gently lowered her to the deck, Maggie noticed that there was a clump of seaweed stuck in her long hair.

  She had forgotten Wayne was beside her until he spoke, his voice hushed.

  “Why, that’s just a little girl.”

  Maggie turned her back on the cutter and leaned
back against the rail. She blinked a few times as she stared at the deck, then looked over at Wayne. He had taken off his cap and was blinking rapidly, but his eyes were filling anyway.

  “Maggie, what could be so bad? Everything gets better eventually,” he said, and his voice broke as tears slipped down his face.

  Not everything, Maggie thought.

  Wayne had served in the Marines with her Daddy, and was one of the funniest and toughest men she’d ever known. She’d never seen him cry unless he was laughing. She reached over and they hugged, then they both pulled away. Then she untied her line and jumped over the rail onto the deck of the speedboat.

  Wyatt turned as she started the engine, and walked over to the rail of the department boat as she yanked up the bumpers.

  “Maggie!” Wyatt called.

  Maggie shook her head, eased off away from Wayne’s boat and coasted past the cutter. The Coast Guard had laid Grace on a stretcher. Maggie looked at her as she slowly went past.

  Grace. You said you’d stay right there.

  Maggie stayed out on her Dad’s boat for the rest of the day, cruising around the bay and sitting for a while, then finally dropping anchor near Little Towhead Island. She spent a couple of hours there, ignoring people who waved as they passed by on their boats, and drinking warm Dr. Peppers that someone had left in the cooler a long time ago.

  Just before sunset, she pulled anchor and docked the boat back in Daddy’s slip at Scipio Creek. She got in the Jeep and pulled out onto the street, intending to go home, but the aloneness of that struck her and she went one block and pulled into Up the Creek Raw Bar instead.

  She was sitting on the back deck, nursing the beer she’d ordered an hour earlier, when Bennett Boudreaux spoke up beside her.

  “Hello, Maggie,” he said cheerfully.

  Maggie looked up at him, and she must have looked a sight, with salty, windblown hair, a decent sunburn, and reddened eyes. His smile disappeared.

  “Hello, Mr. Boudreaux.”

  “Are you alright?”

  She half-smiled at him. “I will be eventually.”

  “May I sit?”

  She nodded, and he sat down beside her, a glass of scotch in his hand.

  “It’s none of my business, but can I ask what’s wrong?”

  Maggie looked at him for a moment and swallowed. “The girl I was trying to help. She killed herself today.”

  Those brilliant blue eyes blinked a few times, and Maggie thought, inappropriately, how beautiful they really were.

  “The girl on the bridge?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes.”

  He crossed himself, then was quiet for a moment, and seemed to be searching her face. “Maggie, I’m genuinely sorry. I truly am.”

  She nodded at him. She believed him, too.

  “I was still trying to find someone that might help. I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Boudreaux, I appreciate that.”

  They looked at each other for a good minute. Maggie saw concern on his face and she was almost certain that the concern was real. Finally, he slid his glass toward her on the wooden table. She picked it up and took a long swallow.

  “Thank you,” she said again, as she put the glass down. She looked away, not wanting to see someone who might or might not be her enemy looking at her with pity.

  “Mr. Boudreaux, do you remember telling me that when you do something good in private it’s because it’s the right thing to do?”

  “Yes.”

  “With all of your money and all of your connections, I bet you could do something for girls like Grace. For parents like Grace.”

  Boudreaux sat back in his chair and considered her, took a sip of his scotch. “Like what, exactly?”

  Maggie huffed out a frustrated laugh. “If I knew that, I would have asked you to do it already.”

  “If the occasion weren’t so sad, I’d be laughing. Not at you, at the irony of a cop trying to turn the town hood into a social activist.”

  Maggie had to smile at that.

  “Do you think it’s such a good thing to let yourself get so deeply hurt, personally, by your cases?”

  Maggie thought about that a second. “Do you think it would be such a good thing if I didn’t?”

  He nodded at her, and they each took a sip of his drink.

  “Are you here with your family?” she asked, to change the subject.

  “No. No, a friend and I are headed out to do some night fishing,” he said. “I just popped in for a quick drink while I wait for him.”

  Maggie nodded, then stood up. He stood as well.

  “I need to get home, it’s been a long day.”

  Boudreaux nodded, still frowning at her. “Are you okay to drive?”

  “Yes,” she said, and almost managed a polite smile. “That’s all I’ve had.”

  “Well, then good. Go be with your family, Maggie.”

  She nodded again, then turned and headed for the stairs.

  Maggie had intended to go straight home, but she headed east instead and pulled into Ten Hole down by Battery Park. She parked on the patch of grass that served as a parking area, and walked down the dock to David’s houseboat.

  He was sitting on the back sun deck, reading a paperback book. He looked up when he heard her footsteps and stood up quickly as she stopped by his gangway.

  “Hey, baby,” he said, and moved toward the gangway.

  She held up her hand and he stopped.

  “Don’t get off the boat,” she said.

  “What’s going on? You look awful.”

  “A girl jumped off the 300 today.”

  “I heard,” he said quietly.

  “I was trying to help her…but she just couldn’t.”

  “Couldn’t what?”

  “Wait, I guess.”

  “I’m sorry, baby.”

  “She was Ricky Alessi’s girlfriend. She was the one living with Alessi.”

  Some understanding passed over David’s face, and he looked sad.

  “I need you to understand. Her name was Grace Carpenter and she’s dead because of the business that you’re in.”

  “I don’t have anything do with meth, Maggie, you know that!”

  “It doesn’t matter, David. It’s all the same. It’s all the same money and it’s all the same people.”

  David blinked at her a few times, stung.

  “She was three years older than our daughter, David, and she’s dead because she was with someone who did the same thing you’re doing.”

  They stared at each other a moment.

  “I’m not trying to hurt you,” Maggie said. “I just needed you to know.”

  Then she turned and walked back up the dock.

  Bennett Boudreaux pulled back the throttle on his boat’s engine and the noise level dropped as he slowed to a cruise. They were out past St. George, in the Gulf proper, one of Bennett’s favorite areas to fish.

  “I love night fishing,” he said over the engine. “The quiet, the stars, the night sky. It’s incredible. You really have to experience it to appreciate it, I guess.”

  He cut the engine and the boat slowly came to a stop. “This looks like a good spot.”

  He dropped the anchor and shook out his hands, tingling from the vibration of the wheel.

  “It’s important to take some time to enjoy the simple things. But like I said in the office the other day, family is my first priority.”

  He reached out and took Sport’s hand.

  “And you’re just not family, old chum.”

  Then he threw Sport’s arm into the dark, churning sea.

  READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK AT

  RIPTIDE

  BOOK 2 IN

  THE FORGOTTEN COAST

  FLORIDA SUSPENSE SERIES

  (Find All of Dawn Lee McKenna’s Books at Amazon!)

  I am deeply indebted to several people for helping me make this series happen.

  Thank you so much to the Betafish, for taking time out of their li
ves to read each chapter as it was written, and keep me from writing anything stupid or inauthentic.

  I am incredibly grateful to John Solomon, executive director of the Apalachicola Chamber of Commerce, and formerly of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, for helping me sound like I know something about law enforcement in Apalach.

  To the real Wayne Stinnett, friend, mentor, and author of the bestselling Jesse McDermitt series, set in the Florida Keys, your belief in me has meant more than you know.

  I could not have published this book without the help of three other fabulous professionals. Tammi Labrecque, of larksandkatydids.com, your editing prowess was invaluable. Power to the Oxford comma. Shayne Rutherford, of darkmoongraphics.com, thank you for creating four beautiful book covers from thin air. Finally, Colleen Sheehan, of wdrbookdesign.com—once again, you have made plain words on a white background look like works of art. You amaze me, my friend.

  I truly enjoy getting to know my readers. We writers aren’t as people-phobic as the stereotypes might lead you to believe. If you’d like to drop me a line, ask a question, or stay up to date on new releases and special pricing for my friends, please visit my website at

  www.dawnleemckenna.com

  Also, you can read the rest of the Forgotten Coast series at

  www.amazon.com/Dawn-Lee-McKenna/e/B00RC14PPG

  While you’re there, I would be very grateful if you’d take just a moment to leave an honest review of this book here.

  The sky over Apalachicola Bay, in the Florida panhandle, had just gone from orange to pink, and then blue. Here and there, small, wooden oyster skiffs dotted the shallow waters, punctuating the start of the long oystering day.

  Further out, larger shrimp boats, their nets spreading like pterodactyl wings, were coming to the end of their day. One of those boats belonged to Axel Blackwell, whose twenty-seventh cigarette was dangling from his lips as he watched his crewmen, Daryl and Petey, swing the second shrimp net over to hover above the deck.

  Axel was tired and irritated. They’d been out since seven the night before, trying to harvest enough shrimp to pay the two crewmen, pay Axel, and still have money to pay for the fuel they’d need tomorrow night.